Page 104 of Taloned Heart

The power inside her turned into something dark. It ached inside her and screamed with a thousand years of women being beaten back and told they were not good enough. it didn’t matter that her grandmothers had been elves; they had still suffered at the hands of everyone who touched them. Centuries and centuries of labor and torment and fighting tooth and nail tobe something.

No more.

She would be the end of this cycle and that started with proving to Margaret that she was more than just a half elf. More than a goddess. She was Lorelei of Silverfell, and all would fall before her blade.

The rage screamed out of her and suddenly her hands were locked around Margaret’s wrists. The grimdags whispered for her to use them, but she couldn’t risk touching them when she knew just how dangerous that was. How much she wanted them in her hands and how she would fly through the battlefield letting them feast.

“Yes,” they whispered in her mind. “Feast.”

And if they were hungry, then she knew one who should not be able to return to the elves’ sacred hunting grounds. Margaret would not go to see her ancestors. She would stay here for the rest of eternity.

Lore snapped Margaret’s wrists and drew the woman closer. Whispering in her ear, “Thank you for giving me all this power, Margaret. I will take it, and I will use it, to make sure that this kingdom becomes exactly what you fear. Humans and magical creatures, all living in harmony. And no one, I mean no one, will remember who you were.”

“All the elves will remember,” Margaret wheezed. “The creatures who fight with me now they will remember. They will know the message that I have spread. I have made myself immortal, no matter what you do now.”

“You don’t understand.” Lore drew back to stare into the elf’s dark eyes. “You made me a goddess, Margaret. And I will wipe all memory of you from their minds. They will not even know you existed.”

Horror blossomed on Margaret’s face, and Lore felt only the slightest twinge of guilt as she buried both the grimdags in the other elf’s heart. The daggers shrieked with pleasure at being used to kill the one who wielded them.

Margaret’s eyes turned pale and colorless, her body withering before Lore’s sight. And she let the body sag, then kicked it away from her with a heave that threw her into the ranks of elves that ran toward her.

But Lore didn’t care about them. They wouldn’t touch her if she didn’t want them to. Until she turned and saw Abraxas.

Her heart. Her soul. Her reason for being.

All the acid dripping off his body slid onto the ground below and turned the grass black. His breathing was labored, massive sides heaving as his wings flexed over his head, struggling to get himself upright so that he could crawl to her side. Even now, even with holes ripped in his sides and acid steaming out of his wounds, he still wanted to save her. He wanted to be with her.

Tears pricked in her eyes and that anger boiled. She would kill them all for this. Damn the world, needing more elves. Damn all the creatures who dared to stand against her. She would not see him like this.

Lore could feel his soul parting from his body. She felt the moment when it tore away from his physical form and started off toward whatever end dragons had. She screamed out her rage in a single word.

“No!”

And then she reached out her hand and stopped it.

Horror had no place in an action like this. She twisted her fingers and then slammed the soul back into his body. She forced it to remain trapped in that prison of flesh and pain.

His ribs stood out with each breath, the white bone gleaming in the sunlight that suddenly illuminated them.

The power inside her flexed, stretched, and it spread darkness through her veins. It let her know that vengeance could be hers. She could destroy and maim and murder if she wished. But she didn’t wish, because she knew this man right here would be saddened to know what she had done.

But this was not the right end to their story. This was not the end she would ever suffer again, and she refused to let him die. Not like this.

So she touched her hand to his nose, pressed her lips against his warm scales that shuddered now with pain.

“I will heal you,” she whispered. “I will put you back together and you will be perfect again. In every way. Neither of us will have to suffer like this ever again. We’re going home, Abraxas, and I’m sorry, but I can’t let you go anywhere else without me.”

She’d killed the woman who had started all this, and yet it was not enough. It would never be enough to know that Margaret was rotting in the ground somewhere with her soul in twin grimdags that would sink into the earth with her. It wasn’t enough to know that her torture would forever be stuck in the dirt with her.

Lore wanted more. She wanted screams and blood on her hands and as she raced back to the battlefield, she gave herself permission to seek out that terrible end for all those who dared attack her.

And there were many.

She ran her dwarven blade through anyone who tried to stop her in the castle. The first two she split in half, right down the centers of their body and they parted to allow her to step right through the remains of what they once were.

Four elves ran toward her with twin witches that stood behind them, whispering spells that were supposed to hurt her. Lore merely laughed, the sound dark and disappointed as she drove them into the wall and then ripped out their hearts.

The witches were more of an annoyance, but she would fight them in the same way they wanted to fight her. Lore used her magic and fused them to the stone wall, allowing them to feel their bodies being crushed by the castle they so staunchly defended. The women screamed, but Lore did not stop to free them for pity. They would not have freed her.

---